


That Ship Hasn't Sailed

by chucks_prophet



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Comfort/Angst, Confessions, Emotionally Repressed Dean Winchester, Established Castiel/Dean Winchester, Established Relationship, Heavy Angst, Husbands, Lots of Sea and Boat Metophors Cos I Can, Love Confessions, M/M, Military Backstory, Navy, Navy Castiel, Supportive John Winchester, at least... no? its okay i understand, but - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-20
Updated: 2018-03-20
Packaged: 2019-04-05 00:10:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,389
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14031888
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chucks_prophet/pseuds/chucks_prophet
Summary: He’s afraid to ask, because he knows the answer. He knows to have pictures of someone tucked away in your nightstand—out of not only your spouse’s prying eyes but your own, it can’t be a good one. So he waits until Dean’s ready to talk again, just like Dean’s waited for Cas all these years.





	That Ship Hasn't Sailed

**Author's Note:**

> I'd be lying if I said I didn't actively seek out an angsty fic idea before I thought of this... I can't help myself, I NEED a n g s t.

“No,” Dean finalizes, “Not happening.”

Just like that, like a fissure in a glass of sparkling, well-aged red wine, Cas’s dream is impacted by the stone of his lover’s intent. “What?”

“No,” Dean repeats. “I don’t want you to do it. I don’t want you to go back.”

“Dean, I don’t—” Cas places his hand over Dean’s. They’re both calloused and worn from punching through every window and door offering opportunity. Because they’ve always been enough. Cursed or not, Dean told him a one night Cas came home to his own mental breakdown. “If this is about the training, I know I’d be gone longer than I used to, but we’ve made it work before.”

“This isn’t up for discussion,” Dean states, yanking his hand out from underneath Cas’s.

“ _Excuse me?”_

“You asked for my approval. This is me denying your request.”

Cas scoffs and thrusts himself off the bed so he’s face-to-face with Dean again, “Of course I’d want your approval, Dean. You’re my _husband!_ I didn’t think you’d be a dick about it!”

“Please, Cas, just listen to me.”

“I’ve **_been_ ** listening, Dean, you’re not—!” Cas sighs. He can’t believe they’re doing this at midnight, but that much is his fault for bringing it up this time of day. Cas has lived overseas. He knows how rocky the waters get at night—not to mention murky. It’s hard to make sense of anything in the dark. “Dean. Tell me what’s going on.”

Dean gulps. He looks distant; his eyes like the green navigation light on an F-14. Perhaps that contributed to Cas’s interest in flying. He’ll admit to it having brought him comfort after a long day on the job.

Then he’s brushing past Cas. Cas turns around, tracking Dean’s short stride to the nightstand. He opens the top compartment of the beat-up wooden drawer and pushes the mountain underwear aside in favor of something at the very bottom. Dean sinks into the bed the minute it’s in his hands.

Carefully, Cas moves to sit next to him. He looks from Dean to the object in his hands, which he sees are multiple objects. It’s a set of photographs, three spread between his fingers like a Japanese folding fan.

He doesn’t recognize any of the images. Dean’s not a big photo person unless it involves him rebuilding what Cas refers to as the mechanical intestines of a classic car, but surely Cas should’ve seen his baby photos by now. Or something _close_ to them, anyway—the first photo clearly features a young Dean, judging by the high-set freckled cheekbones. He’s maybe four years old with a blonde bowl for hair and is tightly embraced by a woman with similar features, though her hair is much longer, resting on Dean’s small, flannel-clad shoulders.

The photo’s black and white, but the light shining on Dean’s smiling cheeks is enough to give it depth.

The second photo is in color. It features a man Cas had come to know and respect (because the word love is harder than any liquid drug in the Winchester family) as John Winchester, Dean’s ex-Marine father, from the extended conversation they had over _the_ dinner, the one that makes or breaks a new relationship. Needless to say, Cas made a good first impression when Dean brought up Cas being in the Navy.

To the right of him is the same woman in the first picture. She’s happy, judging by how close she’s snuggled into John. Cas doesn’t think he’s seen John smile outside of military talk. And Led Zeppelin. Cas knows where Dean gets that half-crooked, half-teethy, but full-on wrinkly smile—the kind that ripples out as far as the eyes and that Cas fell completely in love with at first sight.

And the third picture… the third picture is of the same woman; though you can’t really see her blonde hair underneath that helmet. She’s leaning against the window of an F-14. She’s also wearing a green jacket. On the right sleeve is a yellow and black patch Cas knows all too well.

Cas turns to face Dean, this time with parting lips. “Dean… is that…?”

“Mary Winchester,” he affirms quietly.

“Your mom,” Cas breathes, looking down at the photos again. He wonders how John excluded her from his whiskey-laden tongue as long as Cas had known him. “She’s beautiful, Dean.”

Dean nods as he slips the third image in front of the other two. “She was,” Dean agrees. Two words that send a chill down Cas’s already exposed spine. Suddenly, he’s a lot more grateful for the scars decorating his body.

He’s afraid to ask, because he knows the answer. He knows to have pictures of someone tucked away in your nightstand—out of not only your spouse’s prying eyes but your _own,_ it can’t be a good one. So he waits until Dean’s ready to talk again, just like Dean’s waited for Cas all these years.

“She was the best,” he says following a hefty pause. Almost everything about Dean is rigid, even the smile tearing his face. Everything except his eyes. They closer resemble the green paint in a Crayola watercolor set when it’s wet. Cas doubts he’s going to make use of it. He has a feeling the child within Dean died a long time ago. “And I don’t just mean as a mom, I mean as a pilot. They used to call her Scary Mary, because she was _mean_ —she nearly ganked a guy once for creeping up on her in her bunk… that’s how her and my dad met.”

A small laugh spills from Dean’s lips. His eyes follow the same fashion soon after he speaks again, his voice wavering from the excess luggage in his throat: “They’d, uh—they’d reunited on a couple more tours after that. ‘Course, I was already conceived before the end of the first, so Mom had to take a temporary leave of absence that ended up being permanent until ’83, when her and Dad had the bundle of joy we all know and mostly love as Sam Winchester.” Dean pauses to bite his quivering lip. “I went half my life blaming him for her death. Six months after Sam was born, Mom decided to reenlist for one last tour. Within the first couple weeks, she was shot down by an enemy craft. Killed on impact.”

“That’s why you’re afraid of flying. And afraid of me...” Cas exhales when his heart hits the bottom of his stomach. “Dean, if I had known…”

“She had blue eyes too.” Dean turns to Cas as a sob shakes his chest. “Like _really_ fucking blue.”

And like a current crashing into the hull of a ship, so comes Dean’s body into Cas’s chest. “Shh, it’s okay, baby,” Cas soothes, running his hands from the small of Dean’s trembling back and through the slovenly caramel hairs atop his head, “I’ve got you. I’m here.” He repeats these words a few times, making sure not to waver in his speech, even as he can feel himself tearing up.

Dean mumbles something against Cas’s damp chest. Cas pauses his ministrations to cup Dean’s red face. “What was that, honey?”

“I… I wanna have a family with you,” Dean asserts, reaching up to cup Cas’s face. Every word is a torrent of warmth from his breathy lips: “I want everything. I want a house with a white-picket fence, a backyard big enough for the kids and the dogs to run around in—I’ll even put a car seat in the Impala.” He leans his forehead against Cas’s. Cas can feel the lines etched there—all that pain and sorrow and frustration slowly slipping away and Dean easing into his own skin again. “I just want _us._ I want it all.”

“Yes,” Cas breathes as a laugh escapes him, “God, I never thought I’d hear you say it. Yes, Dean. I want all of that, too.”

“So… you’ll stay?” Dean asks in a voice so timid, Cas leans in and compliments it with a gentle kiss. Though once Dean tastes him, he pulls Cas back into his lips and guides them onto their bed.

Cas likes to think, when he wakes up the next morning wrapped in Dean’s arms, Mary smiling at him from the carpet confirms he’s made the right choice.


End file.
